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Placemaking and Health
Street trees play a major role in creating a comfortable and enjoyable sidewalk experience. They provide a “wall” that mirrors the street wall, creating a pedestrian scaled space. On Main Street and Town Center Typologies, they provide shade for café seating and benches, allowing for street life to flourish even during the warmer months. Trees that overhang the street provide a sense that the traveled way is narrower than it is, helping to slow speeds and calm traffic. Streets trees also enhance safety and personal security on a street by calming traffic and by fostering a denser and more consistent human presence, also referred to as “eyes on the street”. Street trees come in different shapes and sizes and can perform different functions including providing shade, being ornamental, or used for screening incompatible land uses. Different streets and their setting in a Rural (C1&C2), Suburban (C3), Industrial (C3C), Residential Neighborhood (C3R) or Urban General (C4) contexts have different considerations for street trees. In Rural (C1&C2) or Suburban (C3) contexts for certain typologies where freight and automobile users are more prevalent, street trees can be set back near the right-of- way edge, minimizing conflict with utilities. Further benefits of trees in these positions allow the tree plantings to function as a buffer to industrial or other adjacent land uses. In Suburban (C3) and Urban General (C4) residential neighborhoods, commercial or town centers where the roadside area is suitable to a walkable, bikeable, transit environment, street trees are more than a casual amenity or decorative function. They are a necessity to provide environmental qualities of air purifying, shade, and comfort. Recent research points to trees as one of the single most important elements to include in sidewalks and bicycle paths. That critical element is shade, and would certainly be the case in Hillsborough County, Florida. The purpose of the different street typologies is to demonstrate that all streets are not equal and therefore, the placement of trees within those environments is not a one-size- fits-all solution. Each solution requires special attention in planning, design, and arboriculture treatment. Careful selection of the type of trees in different contexts needs to be considered. For example, formal patterns of tree placement are appropriate in Urban General (C4) and Suburban contexts (C3) as a contributing design element for traffic calming; while in Rural (C1&C2) contexts, tree placement may be more natural in character. In addition, trees located in tree lawns in Urban and Suburban contexts adjacent to the travel lanes or close to sidewalks need to factor a tree’s root spread and how it may impact or damage nearby sidewalks and other street features. All these factors should be considered to achieve the full benefits of trees in a complete street’s context. When selecting tree plantings in the tree lawn zone along the roadside, the latest Hillsborough County Development Services Approved Tree and Hedge Materials List, should be consulted. Evergreen and ornamental trees have some degree of flexibility in their placement along a landscaped parkway or border including walkways that might weave between them if the trees are planted in clusters or in more naturalized conditions. Evergreen species such as the Loblolly, Longleaf, Sand, and Slash pines along with
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